End ocean clear-cuts

To members of the UN General Assembly:

As concerned global citizens, we call on you immediately to implement and enforce your obligations to the UN resolutions on fishing and work to ban the destructive practice of deep-sea bottom-fishing. We urge you to usher in a new era of accountability and commitment to our injured oceans by steadfastly holding other nations to their promises to protect oceans and curb devastation.

Posted: 16 September 2011Our oceans are being systematically destroyed, and we have 24 hours to raise the alarm. The seafood industry uses long chains of heavy metal disks to drag nets across the sea floor in search of fish, crushing everything in their path. This bottom-trawling is like clear-cutting a forest to catch a parrot -- and only our outcry can stop it.

In two days, UN policy-makers are meeting to review the impacts of this deadly practice. Pacific island nations are fighting to save the oceans and have appealed to Avaaz members to stand with them. This is our chance to win -- if enough of us speak out now, it will strengthen their hand against big fishing countries, and will embolden serious players like the US and Australia, who have already banned bottom-trawling in their waters, to push for protection everywhere.

Let's build an urgent call to stop the senseless destruction of our oceans -- and delegates will deliver our voices directly to the UN meeting. Sign now on the right and help us reach half a million voices in the next 24 hours: